It’s reassuring to learn that as Spain limps into winter with soaring unemployment and ravaged construction and hospitality industries, Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero has found time to get his teeth into less weighty issues, namely chewing gum.

Pavements in Spain are apparently all gummed up

As whispers began to grow of a possible emergency EU bail-out for the country, the Spanish Prime Minister with his head firmly in the sand, calmly called a cabinet meeting to discuss the problems of gum or chicle as it is known in Spanish playgrounds. Ministers sat and chewed the bit for some hours to resolve what they considered to be serious pavement vandalism.

Apparently the current offering manufactured in Spain is especially sticky and therefore a major problem for street cleaners. In Barcelona for example, the city council claims to remove 1,800 pieces of discarded chewing gum from pavements every year at a cost of… Read more